More research needs to be done to establish: -The reason for the return of bluefin tuna to Channel Island waters and whether warming sea temperatures have forced them to relocate here to find prey -The true extent of current bluefin tuna stock in UK waters

Are you fed up with companies claiming plastic is compostable or biodegradable when there is no way it can be? So are we! TL:DR  Compostable dog poo bags DO NOT break down in the open environment. As they are only sent for incineration or landfill, we do not believe manufacturers should claim they are compostable or biodegradable. Our ask We would like dog poo bag manufacturers and retailers to remove anything that suggests plastic dog poo bags will break down from all marketing; including, the bags themselves, websites and adverts. This includes but is not limited to the words “compostable”, “biodegradable”, and green claims like “eco”, “environmental” or “good for the planet”. Basically, we want all dog poo bag manufacturers and retailers to follow the guidance laid out in the Green Claims Code. Why? For three primary reasons: • Dog poo should not be composted (home or industrial) so suggestions that a dog poo bag will break down or be composted is false • We believe suggesting dog poo bags break down encourages littering as people believe the bag will disappear over time – it won’t • The better material for dog poo bags to be made from is recycled plastic, generating a market for flexible plastic recycling, which will have mandatory household collection from 2027. This will avoid flexible plastic going to incineration, which is the current trajectory, without a clear market for the output. The problem With 13 million dogs in the UK, and around 36 million bags used a day, this is a massive problem. Add into that the estimated 260,000 people who leave the poo bags lying around, according to Keep Britain Tidy who support the petition, and we feel this is a problem we need to sort out.   Aren’t compostables better? Elephant (or should that be dog) in the room, compostables must be better for the planet, right? Well… not quite. Here’s the thing; context matters. When it comes to plastic, how it’s used is just as important as what it’s made from. And in this case, dog poo should never be composted or recycled. So, why do companies claim it will be? Compostable plastic can be useful, it can reduce our reliance on oil-based plastic (although most compostables dog poo bags are not made of plants - see the FAQ on our website for more), and in specific applications could be better than traditional plastic. Examples of uses that could be better than non-compostable plastics include food waste liners, bags for fresh produce and meats, and even tea bags. We are not proposing to ban the use of compostable plastic in dog poo bags, as some companies may feel it is the best plastic to use and we do not want to restrict any innovation. However, we do not believe these products should be marketed to the public as such if there is no way for them to degrade in the UK.  Worse still, the word “compostable” creates confusion. A small but problematic number of dog owners assume that if the bag is compostable, it’s okay to leave it behind. That it, and the poo inside, will magically vanish. Spoiler: it won’t. But wait, aren’t compostable plastics made from plants? Doesn’t that make them better? Not necessarily. Any plastic can technically be made from plants, but making compostable plastics from bio-based sources doesn’t guarantee a lower carbon footprint. In fact, compostables and virgin plastic can have a carbon footprint around 30% - 80% higher than recycled plastic! To make matters worse, according to Pet Impact (another campaign supporter), most compostable poo bags are made with oil-derived plastics, see the FAQ on our website for more. The truth Here’s the bottom line; compostable dog poo bags will never be composted. They end up in landfill or incineration.  There is precedent for this. In 2019, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Ancol Pet Products Ltd could not use the line “these thick waste bags are biodegradable to lessen your dog’s impact on the environment” as claiming biodegradability on a bag that had no route to biodegrade was misleading. Despite this, most dog poo bags today are marketed as “compostable” or “biodegradable”, and many contain the word “eco”. This could not be further from the truth, and we believe is nothing more than greenwashing.  That’s why we’re calling for a ban on environmental claims on dog poo bags that don’t adhere to the Green Claims Code. Let’s keep it simple, sustainable, and honest, and save the word “compostable” for products that are actually compostable. The law The Advertising Standards Authority published new advice in April specifically addressing claims surrounding biodegradable and compostable products. The key tenets of this advice state that marketers should: • Ensure claims that products are biodegradable or compostable are genuine • Don’t exaggerate the biodegradeable content of the product • Don’t omit information material to a product’s ability to biodegrade or compost • Ensure absolute environmental claims apply to the product’s full lifecycle We believe that compostable dog poo bags fly in the face of each of these points. Yet the advice is just that - advice. It isn’t legally binding and producers are not compelled to act on it.

 Our concern is that there will be very little useable field remaining, meaning loss of a valuable space where children can play freely and sports training can take place. Replacing natural land with artificial surfaces, which have a short life-span and are difficult to recycle, is damaging to our environment and goes against the school's own ambition to be as eco-friendly as possible.  We are fully supportive of the field being improved for use in sports and play but suggest that this can be achieved primarily through more effective maintenance.  This would involve basic processes such as aerating, reseeding and resting, which haven't been happening.  Please sign the petition to show your support for a consultation, which will aim to improve facilities without destroying the environment and limiting free play. 

The Great Oak of Muskham is in Muskham Park, North Muskham, Nottinghamshire, a designated Natural England Priority Habitat Deciduous Woodland. The Great Oak of Muskham is registered in the Woodland Trust's Ancient Tree Register. Its massive canopy covers around one-sixth of the entire canopy of this ancient parkland, which has also been covered by an Area Tree Preservation Order since 1975. We want to avoid this becoming another Whitewebbs Oak of Epping Forest disaster. Oak Trees are vitally important for the health of communities and wildlife and this one contains many bat species, as identified in professional ecological surveys by MCIEEM professionals, as well as our own citizen science detection.

• Every year 12 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the ocean, killing 100,000 marine mammals and turtles and a million sea birds • 100+ million plastic cups are used every year at UK festivals and live events, and most of these are incinerated or sent to landfill • Globally 500 billion plastic cups are used each year. If lined up end-to-end these cups would span 50 million kilometres – or more than 130 trips from the Earth to the Moon • Plastic pint cups are the sixth-most commonly found plastic item in Britain’s rivers, and the eighth on the nation’s beaches

Drax is a biomass power plant in North Yorkshire. It’s the UK’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, as well as the world’s number 1 tree burner, and relies on millions of pounds of UK taxpayers’ money in subsidies each year. A recent report from the independent climate change think tank E3G confirmed that DRAX is not needed to achieve the Government’s clean power 2030 mission. • Drax’s operations will increase carbon dioxide levels in the environment for decades (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa512 and https://www.woodwellclimate.org/letter-regarding-use-of-forests-for-bioenergy/). • It is highly polluting. Drax’s facilities have broken environmental laws over 11,000 times in the US, with toxic emissions linked to respiratory diseases and cancers affecting poor communities of colour the most (https://www.landclimate.org/drax-usa-11000/ and https://www.southernenvironment.org/press-release/groundbreaking-report-reveals-harmful-impacts-of-biomass-wood-pellet-plants/).   • It is ecologically damaging, Drax burns rare forest wood, destroying unique habitats. Last year Ofgem fined Drax £25 million, for misreporting data on wood pellet sourcing (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68381160 and https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/ofgem-decision-investigation-drax-power-limited). 

⚠️ Did you know chewing gum is a single-use plastic? 😬 Brits chew a whopping 4 billion pieces of plastic gum. Every. Single. Year. 🥤Every single piece contains a drinking straw's worth of hidden plastic ingredients. These plastics are also used to make carrier bags, car tyres and glue. 🛞 🚑 It's a health emergency as microplastics have been found throughout the human body, from our brains to our heart & lungs and are being linked to many of humanity's worst diseases including cancer, diabetes and infertility. 🌍 Plastic gum creates a huge environmental problem, ending up in landfill, waterways and sticking around to pollute our planet forever. 💸 Littered plastic gum is stuck to 87% of pavements, creating a £60 million per year problem to clean up. 🌿 Plastic-free gum alternatives exist so chewers can keep fresh without harming people or planet... ...and the Government has already banned single-use plastic drinking straws and vapes. 🚫 So, City to Sea, Nuud and a movement of leading plastic charities are calling on the Government to ban on plastic chewing gum for good. ✍️ Sign our petition and spread the word on socials using #BanPlasticGum & #ChewPlantsNotPlastic. 💌 Stay updated! Opt in to receive emails from City to Sea and be the first to hear about the progress of our petition, campaign wins, and ways you can help create change.  📜Read our open letter to Steve Reed and Mary Creagh - https://www.citytosea.org.uk/chew-plants-not-plastic/

Drax has already received billions of pounds in renewable subsidies from our energy bills to burn trees. Much of the wood that it burns comes from the clear-felling of some of the most biodiverse forests in the Southern USA, Canada and Europe, with catastrophic impacts on  wildlife, communities and the climate.  The Guardian has reported that the Government could announce huge new subsidies for Drax’s planet-wrecking tree burning on Monday. If granted, the new subsidies would likely cost UK bill payers hundreds of millions of pounds a year, and they would do nothing to lower UK energy bills or support a transition to clean energy.  Instead, they would allow Drax to keep burning trees, polluting communities in the Southern USA and destroying forests at our expense for years to come, at enormous cost to human health, nature and the climate.  Please help us to call on Ed Miliband to say no to new subsidies for burning trees in power stations.  Instead, the Government should invest in genuine climate solutions like home insulation and wind and solar power that could create new green jobs and help to tackle both the climate emergency and the cost of living crisis. 

Expanding Heathrow Airport with a third runway would be catastrophic for our environment and would put the UK in breach of its legally binding carbon budget to keep the Government on track to meet its 2050 net zero emissions target.  And it could see ticket prices go up by £40 per flight, across the board. So it's bad for the environment - and bad for pockets too. Sign the petition today and tell the Government to drop these plans.

Over the last few years, Sheffield Arena had reusable cups for every event held there. Many people remember bringing back their reusable cup to the arena. Now ASM Global have taken over the arena, they have taken away reusable cups and reverted the arena back to single-use cups. This will result in hundreds of thousands of single-use plastic cups used every year. Microplastics are released into liquids in plastic cups, in addition single-use plastic is made by burning oil, a fossil fuel, which is contributing towards climate change and extreme weather, like floods, heatwaves and wildfires.  Many people loved the reusable cups at Sheffield Arena. They are a shining example of a circular economy, used, washed and reused again and again. Businesses across Sheffield must be doing their bit for the environment, to reduce single-use plastics.

This misuse of the NPPF is actually increasing costs for local councils, considering repairs and removing water after floods. In the short term, SUDs are "very expensive to implement and it’s very expensive to maintain" but in the long run they "can be and are of a great biological benefit and to a benefit of mitigating the risk of excess water runoff and pollutants into the water system." Not only that but "the other economic problem is if we’re flooding the fields and we’re using them as a runoff and we’re using them as an effective land barrier, that is affecting farmers’ ability to produce crop. So then you have a downturn, although it may be small, a downturn in GDP." The picture painted by this is that the council, due to the laxity of the NPPF, choose a high-long term cost over high short-term cost out of what appears to be laziness. There is also a social impact, as closed roads will affect people's ability to travel to and from work and to visit friends and family, causing the councils to be further "flooded" with complaints.

Raise in the water bills by at least £31 on average a year to cover the sewage spills which aren't customers fault